By Nick Powell
It’s
been a wonderful year for Harry Fuller on the footballing front. Scoring 11 goals and providing 10 assists for a Hampton team gunning for the ISFA Cup
final, the 1st XI Vice-Captain has had a fine season, but next year
will be the biggest of his footballing life as he prepares to go to the USA for
a sports-recruitment at the Ivy League’s Cornell University.
“I’m excited, I can’t wait
to step out on the pitch for the first time” he says, as he ponders what his
first experience will be like. “It’s weird to think that the next time I’ll do
the whole football season thing, it will be on a completely different scale.”
And he mentions he gets two pairs of free football boots on arrival too.
For Fuller, there was
always interest at the prospect of playing football in America. “I’d seen like
Movies and stuff, and then I started seeing adverts for soccer showcases, and
going to the U.S. to do it.” He was so interested, it prompted him to go away
for two weeks at the end of his GCSEs to scout some of the USA’s top
universities.
“It’s
weird to think that the next time I’ll do the whole football season thing, it
will be on a completely different scale.”
At Princeton, he played a
football camp. “Princeton is division 1, but there were no division 1 camps so
I settled for a division three to get my bearings. But at that stage I was testing the
waters, so didn’t matter where I started.” However from the off he stood out.
“Immediately they were both trying to get me tied into the system” he says, referring to two coaches that approached him. He quickly got involved with a recruitment agency and began playing in a showcase in the UK. These are elite training academies where matches are staged for top young players to be scouted.
Importantly for Fuller, it
was a chance to be found. The recruitment agency helped him send out a
highlights video to top coaches from footage of games he’d played for Hampton.
And quality highlights
they were, Fuller can drop the ball on a sixpence and has an awareness to pick
out the best available option, and execute it. He’s also got the skills and
looks immensely composed on the ball, in spite of his coach (Mr. Mills)
incessantly shouting PASS and SIMPLE, every time the ball is at his feet.
Coaches were excited about
him, and he soon got in touch with the new head coach at Cornell University.
“It was May, I only had one game left…and he put his assistant coach on the
next flight to the UK”. That was to watch Fuller play in his last showcase game
of the season, and despite feeling the pressure of the occasion, he put in a
strong performance.
Pennsylvania came calling,
and it was a straight choice between that and Cornell. He went for the latter,
opting not to put Penn to paper.
“It
was May, I only had one game left…and he put his assistant coach on the next
flight to the UK”
A number of factors swayed
his decision to join Cornell, the superb Engineering course, the fact that the
soccer team had potential for real growth and he would be the first year of
recruitment from the new coach, the aptly named Englishman John Smith, who has burning ambition, Fuller was "very hopeful for a lot of game time next year and the projection is that by the
fourth year, we really want to be winning the national tournament.”
Once he had confirmed his
place, he couldn’t help but feel a weight of his shoulders, “the recruitment journey
is a long one, and it’s one that when I finally verbally committed it was a
huge relief. There’s a lot of people, particularly international students who
don’t end up completing the journey.” Being flown out to America in October to
see the coach and squad really brought it home to him, a dream was being
realised.
But he’s not resting on
his laurels, far from it, and if he wants to succeed in the Ivy League and
National tournaments, he knows he needs to improve. “Finishing, physicality and
left foot. Those are my big three for the future.” It’s the mark of a great
player who knows his weaknesses, and he will be determined to work on them
before he attempts to make his mark.
He also accepts that he
may not be a footballer in the future though, but for him that makes the choice of going to
an American University all the more logical. “In England you chase football, or
academics. The reason why people choose the college scene is you can chase your
sport just as hard, and you’ve got a degree at the end of it”
So between now and the end
of the year, he will have to work hard. Not just on the pitch, but in the
classroom as he looks to meet the required grades, and in the gym. “For
pre-season, you’re meant to go in fit, and get fitter… that’s something I’m
going to have very seriously, and given that the season’s so short [September
to December], one injury can mean you miss a whole season.”
“In
England you chase football, or academics. The reason why people choose the
college scene is you can chase your sport just as hard, and you’ve got a degree
at the end of it”
And now it really steps
up. If this great journey continues, Fuller has hopes of being one of the 80
college players around the country put into the 2021 Major League Soccer [MLS –
U.S. football league] draft. “If everything goes my way, I’m confident of
getting noticed, but I’m very aware that just turning up and playing like I
normally play won’t be enough.”
Whatever happens for
Harry, he is in a great position. Perhaps he’ll go all the way, becoming one of
Hampton’s greatest sporting alumni of all time. Or maybe it won’t work out for
him, but there are worse things to have than an Engineering degree from one of
the best Universities in America. The future looks bright either way, but watch
this space…
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